
Class JLii 
Book ZL 



MOSES AND JOSHUA. 



utaMst 

u 



ON THE DEATH OF 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



PREACHED IN THE 



WINTHROP CHURCH, CHARLESTOWN, 



Wednesday Noon, April 19, 1S6S. 



BY 

REV. J. E. RANKIN. 

PASTOR. 



BOSTON: 

PRESS OF DAKIN AND METCALF, 

No. 37 Corn hill. 



MOSES AND JOSHUA. 



A 



jP'isrtfn.m 



ON THE DEATH OF 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



FREACHED IN THE 



WINTHROP CHURCH, CHARLESTWN, 



Wednesday Noon, April 19, 1865. 



BY 

REV. J. E. RANKIN, 



BOSTON: 
PRESS OF DAKIN AND METCALF, 

NO. 37 CORNHILL. 




EVst 

.8 ' 



Rev. J. E. Rankin : 

Dear Sir, — Having listened with great interest to your sermon, 
preached on Wednesday, April 19, 1865, in the Winthrop Church, on 
the occasion of the death of President Lincoln, we respectfully request, in 
behalf of ourselves and many others, who were present, a copy of the 
same for publication. 

Respectfully and truly yours, 

H. S. DOANE, 
A . WHITNEY, 
WM. CARLETON, 
GEO. HYDE, 
JAMES ADAMS, 
ARTHUR W. TUFTS, 
CALEB EMERY, 
NATHAN A. TUFTS. 
Charlestown, April 20, lSGo. 



Charlestown, April 20, 1865. 
Dear Friends, — 

Your request has taken me entirely by surprise ; and I fear that the 
hastily-prepared manuscript which I place at your disposal will only 
disappoint you when printed. 

Wishing it were worthier of the occasion, your kindness, and my 
own feelings, 

I am yours truly, 

J. E. RANKIN. 
Deacon Heman S. Doane, and others. 



DISCOURSE 



Joshua i. 1,2:" Now after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, 
it came to pass that the lord spake unto joshua, the son of nun, 
Moses' minister, saying, Moses my servant is dead ; now, therefore, 
arise, go over this jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land 
which i do give to them." 

The Bible contains the history of the human race in 
epitome ; is the mirror in which every age and every 
generation may see reflected its own features and com- 
plexion. The prophecies of the Bible have a germinant 
fulfilment ; have a manifold application. Its historical 
portions furnish illustrations and analogies for almost every 
type of character and event. 

Nothing can be more beautiful or appropriate than many 
of the parallels which the American people have traced 
between their own recent history and that of the children 
of Israel in their exodus from the house of bondage ; 
and, doubtless, the parallels are far more striking in the 
history of that oppressed race, whose deliverance has 
been a literal one, than in our own. And no parallel of 
this kind could be more appropriate or touching than that 
suggested by the melancholy passage in our national ex- 
perience which is now transpiring. 

From poverty, obscurity, and untold social disadvantages, 
God raised up Abraham Lincoln' to enact a part, second 
to none in importance, in the history of the world; whose 
consequences are to affect the condition and happiness of 



unnumbered millions. While living, and enacting his part 
with characteristic simplicity and fidelity, none of his con- 
temporaries could appreciate it. Like the unfinished work 
of the artist, which needs only the slightest touch upon 
eye or mouth to round and complete the likeness, so the 
work of this patient and unpretending ruler needed but the 
touch of death to render it immortal. There are documents 
written by the hand that now lies nerveless in the nation's 
capital ; there are words prompted by that great heart, 
whose kind beatings have been so rudely hushed forever, 
uttered by those lips, upon which the people nevermore will 
hang in expectancy or delight, which can never die. 

The Emancipation Proclamation Avill always be classed 
with the Declaration of Independence, as its suitable com- 
plement and fulfilment. Take the state papers of this Illi- 
nois lawyer, all of whose common-school education did not 
exceed a single year, and how clear, how direct, how sa- 
gacious, how cogent, they are ! — how exhaustive of the sub- 
ject in hand, how overwhelming to antagonists, how oppor- 
tunely put forth, how satisfactory to the people ! How 
thoroughly this man understood and was master of the situ- 
ation ! Watching every pulse of the nation, watching every 
providence of God, — now radical, now conservative, now 
moving with the grand progress of the people, now waiting 
for the people to move, — during four } r ears of civil war he 
has kept united upon his policy the sound judgment, the keen 
moral sense, of the most intelligent, the most thinking, peo- 
ple upon the face of the earth ! Nay, more ! Every time the 
tide of feeling has in any measure ebbed away from his ad- 
ministration, it has only been to come back from the great 
bosom of the nation with increased fulness and volume ! 
And when he so suddenly and so sadly fell, this tide of af- 
fection and enthusiastic trust had reached its highest point. 



Ill the admiring view of the whole nation, he stood upon that 
Pisgah to which his own fidelity to God and to the princi- 
ples of truth and justice had elevated him. He stood there, 
and looking northward, all was industry, thrift, and success. 
The axe of the woodman still rang from the forests of 
Maine ; the white wings of commerce still sought the har- 
bors of New England ; the din of business still rose from the 
mighty centres' of manufacture and of trade ; the husband- 
man followed his shining plough afield, and scattered his 
seed with the certainty of reaping an undisturbed and abun- 
dant harvest. He looked toward the prairies of his own be- 
loved Western home, the scene of his early struggles and 
achievements. He saw the great artery of the nation's sys- 
tem pouring its unshackled currents into the waiting Gulf. 
The broad prairies were putting on their spring attire ; the 
children, as they played about the distant cabins of the set- 
tler, mingled his name with that of their fathers', who were 
fighting under the country's flag ; and off to the Pacific 
coast, the virgin soil of mountain and of valley was forever 
free. If there was sorrow all over these portions of the 
land, it was not the sorrow of those who mourn without 
hope. The people felt that every soldier's life had given 
years of immortality to the republic ; that what had been 
" sown in weakness " on so many hard-fought fields would 
be "raised in power ;" and every flag was flung to the breeze, 
and every vale was made vocal with cheer and cannon and 
bell ; and even the soldier's widow mingled the colors of the 
republic with her weeds, and his children knew no music 
like the fife and drum. And when our Moses turned his 
gaze southward, he saw Ethiopia — a nation born in a 
day — stretching out her liberated hands to God, and in- 
voking his richest benedictions to descend upon her deliv- 
erer. He saw Treason vacating her capital and strongholds, 



iii the vain attempt to flee inland to the mountains, ensnar- 
ed on every hand, and, finally, surrendering her sword, and 
sending her disarmed minions to proclaim at their own 
homes their final discouragement and discomfiture. This 
was the vision that blessed the gaze of Abraham Lincoln ; 
and all this success and prosperity and freedom was hence- 
forth and forever to be associated with his own name. Ah, 
when he passed through the streets of Richmond an unarm- 
ed conqueror, was not his cup of happiness filled to the 
brim ? Was it not enough to satisfy the purest and highest 
earthly ambition of the soul ? And upon this summit he 
died, — died with this vision still lingering in his memory, 
with these acclamations of gratitude and trust still ringing 
in his ears ! 

" Thus always to tyrants ! " muttered the lips of the cow- 
ardly assassin, as the fatal bullet sped to its mark. And the 
nation, as she drapes her proud mansions and her humble 
dwellings, her places of business, her sanctuaries, and public 
offices in mourning, — as her banner droops, as the brazen lips 
of bells and the sullen mouths of cannon syllable her grief, 
— the nation, as clothed in widow's weeds she stands at this 
hour by the open grave of the man twice-honored with the 
highest position in her gift, takes up the word, "Thus al- 
ways to patriot martyrs ! So will we ever mourn the ruler 
thus true to his country and his country's God ! " 

Never had a President such a hold upon the affections of 
the people ! Every loyal man, woman, and child in the na- 
tion has felt, since his death occurred, as though the form 
of a cherished one lay unburied within their own dwellings, 
as though it were wrong to think or speak of anything else. 
The instincts of the people are true. Here was a man that 
did not surround himself with stately formalities ; that did 
not disguise his sentiments by putting them into courtly 



phrases ; that heard their petitions with a paternal ear ; that 
drew their heart up to his own, that he might feel its beat. 
"We have had many a Chief Executive whose memory the 
people will honor; but here was one who, though compelled 
by his imperative duty to call hundreds of thousands of our 
brothers and sons into the field from which they never re- 
turned to gladden our homes, — here was a President whose 
memory the people love, and will love forever ! Place his 
dust wherever you may, they will make their hearts his 
shrine. Pile up proud monuments to his memory, put 
his figure into bronze or marble, there shall be a memorial 
more enduring than these. They will always remember the 
pensive and sympathizing look of that deep-set eye, the 
honest angles of that homely face. 

Abraham Lincoln is dead! but his work lives, his mem- 
ory lives. It is a rich inheritance for the American people 
to have the memory of one public man in modern times 
who has achieved such greatness as his, without a stain upon 
his personal character. There are men who have risen fast- 
er than he, — men of eminent intellectual ability, who 
have had their eye upon the presidential chair, who have 
schemed and intrigued and contrived until they have suc- 
ceeded in sitting there; and others who have failed, and 
died disappointed. But Abraham Lincoln attained the po- 
sition which he occupied while living, and which he will oc- 
cupy in history, by the strictest integrity, by old-fashioned, 
downright honesty. " Honest old Abe," inelegant as is the 
phrase, was no unmeaning sobriquet. It was written all 
over him, — in gait and feature and dress. He had a sin- 
cere purpose to serve the people, and not himself or his par- 
ty ; and so the people trusted in him, tilled his armies, and 
bought his bonds. I believe, also, that he had a sincere 
purpose to serve his God, and so God accepted him as his 



10 



servant, even as he did Moses ; honored him as his servant ; 
permitted him to do — nay, raised him up to do — a work 
almost as marked, in its political aspects, as was that of Mo- 
ses himself. It is his sovereign prerogative and method to 
adapt the man to the work which he would have accom- 
plished ; and having accomplished the work, and all the 
work, which he had for Abraham Lincoln to do, he has taken 
him to himself. 

Abraham Lincoln fell a victim to his own lenient and un- 
suspecting nature. He knew there were as black-hearted 
traitors in Washington as anywhere in the South ; and yet — 
because he loved that peculiarity of our institutions which 
surrounds the Chief Magistrate with no military escort, with 
nothing which privileges him above, or distinguishes him 
from, an ordinary citizen — he who will hereafter be re- 
garded the most eminent ruler of modern times, the repre- 
sentative man of this epoch, came and went as though the 
thrust of a dagger or the ball of a revolver might not at any 
moment terminate his life, and leave the nation in mourn- 
ing. 

Every Christian man must deeply regret that the Chief 
Executive of the nation was assassinated in a theatre. The- 
atre-goiug is too likely to train up just such desperate men 
as become assassins, and the frequenters of such amuse- 
ments are never too select. Indeed, his probable assassin 
had been educated in this school of morals. But there is 
reason to believe he was there, because he would not disap- 
point the people, though one of them who was enjoying the 
benefits of his benignant administration was even then plot- 
ting to take his life. I do not regard his presence there as 
any evidence of a taste for such places or such pleasures ; 
but surely, his example had been better, his life had been 
safer, elsewhere. And this is all that need be said. 



11 



Our Chief Executive fell by the hand of an assassin. 
Thus to terminate the life of the humblest and meanest citi- 
zen in the land is a most wicked and cowardly act, and is 
deserving of the most ignominious fate. But what shall we 
say of the creature who can deliberately plan and deliberate- 
ly arrange and execute the murder of a nation's great and 
beloved ruler ; who can shoot an unsuspecting, an unarmed, 
victim, whose greatest weakness has been his tenderness and 
clemency toward his own and his country's foes ? It may 
well be said 

" Besides, this Duncan 
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 
So clear in his great office, that his virtues 
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against 
The deep damnation of his taking off." 

The life of a ruler was intended by God to be regarded as 
far more sacred than that of an ordinary man. Government 
is his ordinance, and the ruler his representative. And 
though our Chief Executive is chosen by the people, and 
but temporarily bears the responsibilities of state, yet no 
ruler could have an anointing, a consecration, higher and 
holier than his. And if the free millions of a great people 
twice bestow their highest trust upon a man, his life is 
doubly sacred. When, therefore, the assassin singled out 
the man thus again selected by a singularly united nation, 
thus again selected by God himself, and brutally murdered 
him, he committed an act so cruel and inhuman and unholy, 
so dastardly, that, had he ten thousand lives, he could 
not expiate or atone for it. And yet, perhaps, the great 
lesson which the people were to learn, were to be educat- 
ed by poignant grief properly to appreciate, was this: 
that to destroy the life of a nation is an infinitely greater 
crime than to destroy the life of a nation's ruler. The ruler 
dies, but the nation lives. And, to my own mind, it af- 



12 



fords the highest possible proof of the sufficiency of our po- 
litical system for the most sudden and disastrous emergen- 
cy, as well as of the moral strength and intelligence of this 
great people and the favor of Jehovah himself, that the na- 
tion, thus suddenly and disastrously afflicted, does not, for a 
single moment, waver or hesitate as to the future, hut with 
new calmness and trust and determination, addresses herself 
to the great work which God's providence has thrust upon 
her. Yes, the nation lives. But treason is only another 
name for an attempt to take the nation's life. The same 
spirit that prompted the starving of our prisoners at Don- 
aldsonville and Belle Isle plotted against the life of the 
President when first on his way to the nation's capital, and 
consummated his death on Friday evening last. Every 
cannon and gun discharged during the last four years has 
been aimed by those in rebellion not against men ; is of 
no such private interpretation; has been aimed at the life 
of the nation. And the time has come when, putting aside 
all the mawkish sentimentalism which has been so preva- 
lent, the people should rise up and insist, not upon ven- 
geance, but upon the vindication of their government. I say 
it deliberately : treason of such long standing, so intelligent, 
so persistent, so destructive, so infernal, as that of the lead- 
ing spirits in the South ought not to be forgiven by this 
people. God does not intend it shall be forgiven. And 
yet who will say that this was not the tendency of public 
sentiment before the death of the late President? And who 
will say that this sad event was not needed to* furnish us 
with a new standard for taking the dimensions of this 
crime ? Is it not time that we cease shooting deserters and 
let assassins go unpunished, if the men who have deluged 
this land with blood are to escape merely because they have 
usurped the titles and worn the insignia of authority? 



13 



Those who have been guilty of treason, those who have de- 
liberately foresworn their allegiance to the government of 
their fathers, who have waged four years of relentless war- 
fare against their country, have not only forfeited all rights 
as citizens, but have so vitiated and corrupted themselves 
that they never hereafter can be trusted as fellow-citizens. 
They have forever unfitted themselves for citizenship. 
The men who have been cognizant of, and have never at- 
tempted to discountenance, the cruelties inflicted upon our 
captured soldiers, can the people receive them back again? 
In Abraham Lincoln, God gave us just the man to take us 
safely through the past stages of the rebellion; just the man 
to determine the true policy of the nation, to inaugurate it 
and render it secure. But the nation had now reached the 
Jordan, beyond which were sterner duties than any in die past. 
God saw that to compromise with the surviving leaders of 
this conspiracy against the existence of the nation, to give 
back Arlington Heights — that beautiful spot where one 
looks across the valley of the Potomac to the dome of the 
capitol — to its former proprietor, and to permit him to en- 
joy again the rights of citizenship, was simply to furnish oc- 
casion and encouragement for other treasons in the future. 
Rebellion had been subdued; but treason had not been 
touched. Its brands were only scattered again over the 
laud, waiting for another favorable opportunity to kindle 
into flames. Rather, to have been one of the original con- 
spirators, to have been among the leaders in these designs 
which have so afflicted the nation, to have attained this bad 
eminence in crime, seemed sufficient to insure pardon and 
release. Such might not have been the policy of the gov- 
ernment ; but, surely, there was great reason to apprehend 
it. We can never be secure against future treachery among 
our public men, whose ambition has been disappointed and 



14 



whoso arrogance affronted, until the neck of this treason 
bears the mark of the halter and dangles beneath the gib- 
bet ! Had this been the fate of John C. Calhoun, Jefferson 
Davis would have taken warning. But treason was per- 
mitted to make its nest in the very Cabinet, to utter its 
words of defiance upon the floor of the Senate, and then to 
depart unquestioned, unchallenged. 

In Andrew Johnson, God has given us a man who, if we 
may confide in his repeated utterances, knows how to define 
and to punish this crime against the life of a nation ; a suit- 
able workman to stitch the shroud of this rebellion. The 
leaders in this conspiracy lost all prospect of a nationality 
on April 9th, when their hitherto invincible Lee surren- 
dered to General Grant his surrounded and dispirited army. 
Now — in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln — they 
have lost all prospect of recovering their estates and their 
citizenship, and if adjudged guilty of the crime of treason, 
no executive clemency will interpose for their pardon. The 
law must take its course ; the people will demand this. 
And this is as it should be. The desperate men concerned 
knew what they risked when they engaged in this contest. 
If they had succeeded, they would have been regarded as 
heroes fighting for their homes. They have failed. Let 
them take the fate of felons. 

There is an incalculable moral influence proceeding and 
to proceed from this contest. We are a spectacle to the 
nations of the earth, and God has a government to vindi- 
cate as well as man. It is not the misfortune of failure 
which sufficiently punishes such unprincipled spirits as have 
undertaken to destroy the sacred work of our fathers. The 
world needs the exhibition of a justice more severe and ex- 
act. When rebellion failed in heaven, there were everlasting 
chains of darkness for those engaged in it : 



15 



" Hurled headlong flaming from th 1 ethereal slty 
With hideous ruin and combustion." 

And I believe that God has ordained that what the world 
calls "poetical justice" — justice in some measure adequate 
to the crime committed — shall yet he meted out to the men 
most guilty in conspiring - against the life of this nation ; 
whose bloody hands would 

" The multitudinous seas incarnadine, 
Making the green one red." 

Some individuals lind it difficult to distinguish between 
vindictiveness and a sense of justice. They are afraid to 
urge the application of the divine law against murder, lest 
they may be regarded vindictive. But God intended hu- 
man government to be a terror to those that do evil. The 
pardoning power is a dangerous one to the innocent. Can 
our executive officers expect to escape assassination, when 
they stay the processes by which the assassination of the 
humblest citizen is prevented or avenged ? Let us beware 
of those views of government, whether human or divine, in 
which there is no justice, in which there are no penalties, in 
which there is no terror to evil-doers. And while we are 
cautious not to transcend the limits and methods of the law, 
let us not enervate and emasculate our national authority by 
mingling in our moral decisions too great tenderness toward 
the transgressor. 

The mournful solemnities of this occasion, — the fourth 
anniversary of the first shedding of blood in Baltimore, and 
the ninetieth anniversary of the battle of Lexington, — upon 
which a whole land, as one family, mingle their tears in 
sorrow, only illustrate the spirit with which we have to 
deal. Had treason at the capital been more severely pun- 
ished, had a price been put upon its head, had it always had 
the manacles and halter which it has deserved, perhaps the 



16 ' , 



nation had never experienced this heavy loss. But such 
conjectures are unprofitable now. We bury our true-heart- 
ed President to-day, tenderly and reverently as we would 
bury a father. We wonder at God's goodness in raising up 
such a man, and. enabling him to accomplish so much in a 
single term of office. We accept the proof that we are yet 
under the guidance of the Lord of hosts, which this gift at 
such a time affords. We turn from the sun just set amid so 
much glory in the west — to another man from the people — 
to our rising sun in the east, trusting that what Abraham Lin- 
coln, of Illinois, has not lived to accomplish God will enable 
Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, to do. We are disappointed, 
but we are not discouraged. We have passed the Red Sea 
and the wilderness, and have had unmistakable pledges that 
we shall occupy that land of Union, Liberty, and Peace 
which flows with milk and honey. The curtain has risen 
for the last scene. Let us quit ourselves like men. Let us 
go over this Jordan and take possession of what is before 
us ! God changes the men, but keeps his purpose, to give 
it to us and to our children forever ! And let us respond to 
the appeal of our new President for sympathy and support 
as the Israelites did to Joshua: " According as Ave heart- 
eued unto Moses in all things, so will we hearken unto 
thee, only the Lord thy God be with thee as he was with 
Moses." 






